Life in One-Inch Squares

When I was a child I was prone to car sickness. Or I pretended I was. No, I really was! I think. At any rate, the mere threat of car sickness garnered the offending child a free pass to the space between my parents on the front bench seat of the ’55 Chevy station wagon. From the front seat one can look forward to what is coming, instead of sideways to what is going away. Makes you less dizzy. And I speculate now that my parents, who had more height over the metal dashboard, could anticipate the twists and turns and ups and downs in the hilly, winding roads we tended to travel on family vacations. They moved their bodies with the variations instead of letting the curves buffet them about, or fighting against them. Wedged between them, they took me with them. That’s what parents do, anticipate what’s coming up ahead and protect their Small Children from the beating that life can be.

Good friends do that for each other now, I think. But we don't follow their guidance so much. We tell each other what we see coming, but often we don't lean with them and we go flying off the s-curve instead. When we climb back up onto the road, we realize those who love us saw the danger coming. And we wish we had been looking forward instead of sideways. If we're lucky, though we may get hurt, it isn't fatal. My friend Ben used to tell me there is no mistake that can't be undone.

I love anticipation. For the four years I lived in Mississippi one of the things I found hard about living there was the sure knowledge that I could never, ever turn around to the window and see that it had started to snow. It didn't snow all that much any place I have lived, but there was always the possibility when it was cold and the sky was overcast that flakes would suddenly begin falling. Or not, but anything was possible. The sky in Mississippi was always blue, and it was rarely below freezing. Most of the time there were no clouds. A thunderstorm rolled in about 4:00 pretty much every day in the summer; but the sky turned black suddenly, it rained for three and a half minutes and cleared back to blue in the blink of an eye. The sky in Mississippi is flat out boring. And for twelve months a year there is nothing to anticipate. I don't know why they even have weather forecasters in states like that. Complain all you want about the weather in the one-inch square in which you live, but I am telling you variety is a very good thing.

Once, when I was old enough to know better, I actually found the Christmas presents I was looking in my parents' closet for. It ruined Christmas for me that year. I blame my mother for her lack of creative hiding. Perhaps that was the year I realized that I love the anticipation at least as much as the event.

Now I try to enjoy the possible, and resist the urge to get there before it’s time. One of the ways I am trying to anticipate what is ahead is by merely being open to what may come. Looking a little ways ahead to anticipate the curves, and to take a different fork in the road when it seems prudent, is a good thing; to avoid dead-ends and to heed the "bridge out ahead" signs. But sometimes we have to experience the end of the road to know we need to back up and take another route, and that is okay too. What is the danger of living the anticipation while overlooking what is in our square right now? What if we overlook something that is a necessary step to What is Coming on the Road Ahead? How much do we miss by worrying about arriving at the right destination rather than enjoying the view passing so quickly by; how much do we miss by not stopping to dip into that life, the one right in front of us, instead of the one far ahead; by not recognizing the destination is really a horizon, not a boundary? (Thanks to Patti Digh, Creative is a Verb: If you're alive, you're creative, for that last bit. I recommend the book.)

I started an art project a week ago. At the end of each day I cut a one-inch square from a magazine that represents how I experienced that day. My plan is to continue for the 66 days from the first square until the first day of spring. So far I have a couple of ticket stubs, reminders that I said Yes to invitations and the Yes influenced my day. Being January Crazy Time at work, several squares tell of irritation, disjointedness, black moods, exhaustion. Hopefully, as January is only in the rearview mirror and spring approaches (or maybe there will be another snow day!), the colors will lighten. When it is finished it will be an indoor garden of one-inch squares of color and texture--66 days until spring. Even as I anticipate spring, I am mindful of and naming what I am feeling and experiencing--who I am--in each day. What are we made up of if not small squares of color, tone, story, and meaning?

Last week, in keeping with my New Year Resolution, I said Yes to moderating a panel of writers who share a church community with me. They all expressed something I know, too. Joan Dideon said it well, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking, what I am looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” If we look at the One-Inch Square, and name it--in writing, in art, or just in our heads--perhaps we can figure out what it means, and if we like it or if we don’t. We can anticipate the turns just ahead, and unlike the road, maybe even alter them.

Another thing Patti Digh muses on in her book is what would happen in our daily lives if we divorced the lifetime of history we have with the thing in front of us--the object, the situation, the person, the opportunity--and simply looked at the components of the thing instead, the discrete pieces that make it up, the one-inch squares of line and shadow, not our expectations of what they will form. What if we divorced our perception from the thing itself, if we stopped seeing what we expect to see and saw what we really see? I am still thinking about what that means to me. How much do my choices and my perceptions of my One Inch rest on what I think could happen based on what has happened before. Okay, specifically--getting personal, though I guess you are used to that--how much do I close myself off to the possibility of falling in love again because I have hurt and been hurt by love in the past? Is it possible to live in my One-Inch Square and not anticipate a curve or washout that might not even be there? Can I enjoy this or that friendship in this moment, and not be afraid that it will or won't be something else? Can I anticipate the possibilities, good or bad, then let them go and enjoy the One Inch that I am in right now? Can I see the horizon as an opening instead of a boundary? What history do you need to divorce yourself from so that you can see the one-inch squares?

Meanwhile, in the garden, I see the barrenness of winter if I look at the whole picture. But if I look at the one-inch squares, I see the winter jasmine blooming, the pansies unaffected by the cold, the Lorapetalum I planted in the fall thriving, the red berries of the Nandina beacons in the drabness, the coral bells and Lenten rose hanging in there. They are doing just what they are supposed to do. They are not waiting for a warmer day. And in my window, the coleus I loved so much is growing roots so that it might be returned to the ground in the spring. And the moon cycles through its waxing and waning just like clockwork. They are all saying, "YES!" to their One-Inch Square. Me, too.